With need for speed world you are stuck with the default controls, if it is a non logitech or xbox controller it will not work. As far as I know there are emulators out there but I have no idea which ones.

Support for generic game controllers, pads, etc was never added to the game. There are also no in-game settings to adjust the supported controllers.

Some players use XPadder or similar program to map the keyboard keys to controller buttons.
There was also a thread on EA's forum for the game on a registry tweak to trick Windows into recognizing some controllers are one of the supported one. Try searching there....http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/categories/show/187.page